seaman



(No Model.)

F. W. SEAMAN.

INGOT 0R BAR FOR TOOLS.

No. 383,192. Patented May-22, 188B.

A. fl

FIGA' F1615 FIG.6.

A B B B B FIG.7

Winwdw, JZZ WMWK WWW FREDERICK WM. SEAMAN, OF ESElEFFlELD, COUNTY OF YORK, ENGLAND.

INGOT OR BAR FOR TOOLS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 383,192, dated May 22, 1888.

Application filed September 28, 1887. Serial No. 250,939. (No specimens.)

To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Fnnnnsron WILLIAM SEAMAN, a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, and a resident of Sheffield, county of York, England, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Ingots or Bars for Tools, &c.; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of this specification.

My invention, having for its object the re moval of the many risks attendant upon the use of self-hardening steel in the manufacture of engineers tools and other like implements, is directed especially to a means of protecting such self'hardening steel from various hostile influences which attack such excessively hard-natured steel while in a heated condition and during the processes of hammering and rolling from the ingot, the said protecting agency also enabling the smith to forge and shape the tools with much greater facility and certainty than is possible with selfhardcning steel under ordinary conditions.

The mode of attaining the object mentioned above is shown in the accompanying sheet of drawings, in which Figures 1 to 7, inclusive, represent in crosssection ingots or bars of selfhardening and other steel, the self -harr.lening steel being marked A, while the other (protecting) steel is marked B in all the figures.

What are known as self-hardening" steels are of a nature so dense and hard that they will cut or otherwise operate upon other steel or hard metals without being hardened in the manner ordinary tools usually are. Self-hard ening steel is likewise not softened by the heat generated by friction when used in operating, as before mentioned, and as would be the case with waterhardened tools of ordinary steels. These desirable and valuable qualities are not, however, found coexistent with strength, toughness, and malleability, and such steel is very stubborn in resisting the action of the tilt or steanrhammer or the rolls, and it is especially difiicult for the smith to forge into the desired shape or form of tool. Further, it is very liable to damage while being heated and 'to have small cracks formed across its corners or angles, which, however small, form points distinguishing it from the other classes of toolsteel is that it is used without any hardening by water or oil. It is an alloy of eight to ten per cent. of Wolfram metal with iron, carbon, manganese, silicon, &c.; but hardly any single make of this steel is identical with. any other make of it, and definite proportions cannot, therefore, be stated.

To avoid the drawbacks incident to the use of self-hardening steel in its ordinary condition, I combine such steel (whether known as selfhardening, Mushets, or my own airhardening steel, or other like steel or alloy of same of sufficient hardness to work other metals without water-hardening) with a coving or partial covering of milder strongbodied steel, such combination being made in the ingot-mold by any of the methods at present in use and capable of producing the desired form of the combination. The metal employed for the covering or partial covering is ordinary cast-steel, consisting ofan alloy ofiron, carbon, manganese, silicon, 850., but its composition may be modified or varied, according to the qualities required.

The self-hardening or air-hardening steels have the serious drawbacks of being very diflicult to forge from the ingots into bars, and even dangerous to forge from large bars into tools, as their peculiar nature makes them very susceptible to overheating or unskillful heating. The object of my invention is to remedy this difficulty by protecting the very hard special steel with a surrounding of tougher ordinary steel that is less easily injured by heating, and this surrounding has the further decided advantage of giving the hard steel great support, and so preventing the bars snapping in pieces under the forge-hammer, as at present is often the case when the bars have been slightly flawed during the process of forging down the ingots, and my invention will greatly prevent such flaws being made. This combination of a steel having sufficient density and hardness to enable the usual process of water-hardening to be dispensed with, and from which the cuttingedge of the tool is to be made, with a covering or support of tough, strong steel is of decided public utility-first, in reducing the cost of producing engineers and other tools having a cuttingedge of self hardening steel; second, in the increased resilience of such tools; and, third, the increased strength and reliability and consequentsafety in the use of such tools.

The two kinds of steel may be combined either by pouring molten milder steel around an ingot of self-hardening steel or bypouring molten self-hardening steel into a suitable reeess in an ingot of mild tough steel, or otherwise by forming the compound ingot in an ordinary lump-mold in a steel-melting furnace, or by teeming or pouring the two steels simultaneously into a mold suitably divided by a diaphragm of sheet-iron, which affords a better welding between the two dissimilar metals.

In the current methods one of the steels is cast first and becomes solid, and while it is white hot the other steel is east in contact with the first, and a thorough weld of the two together is obtained.

What I therefore claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States, is-

1. An ingot or bar composed of a self-hard ening steel and a tougher steel, substantially as hereiubefore set forth.

2. The combination, in an ingot or bar, of a self-hardening steel and a tougher steel, the latter surrounding or partially surrounding the former, substantially as hereinbefore set forth.

In testimony thatI claim the foregoing as my own I have affixed hereto my signature in presence of two Witnesses.

FREDK. \VM. SE AM AN.

IVitnesses:

R0121. F. DRUnY, ENsoR D. DRURY. 

